Scoreless draw, but Canada leads Pool A
West Island native was a natural, even as a 5- or 6-year-old Strawberry
How competitive is Team Canada soccer player Rhian Wilkinson?
When she was 5 or 6 years old, playing for Lakeshore on the West Island with a team called the Strawberries, they lost a championship game to the Avocados. After that, she refused to eat avocados.
“I refused to eat avocados until I was 25 years old,” Wilkinson told Montreal filmmaker Bobbi Jo Hart, who made a documentary about Team Canada’s journey to the FIFA Women’s World Cup titled RISE.
Wilkinson then added: “Now I regret those years of deliciousness that I missed out on.”
“That’s true,” Wilkinson’s mother, Shan Evans, recalled Wednesday night from her home in Baie-d’Urfé. “There was a girl on that team named Emily … she was a lot bigger than Rhian, so we called them the dreaded Avocados. In those days, we didn’t eat too many avocados.”
How determined is Rhian Wilkinson?
She didn’t let getting cut once from her high school team at Villa Maria, or being cut by the Lakeshore Lakers inter-city team the first time she tried out, stop her from living her soccer dream.
“She likes to tell kids that you just got to keep on keeping on,” Evans said about her now 33-year-old daughter. “If you want it hard enough, you’ll get there.”
Wilkinson attended Dorset Elementary School in Baie-d’Urfé and as a 12-year-old wrote in her yearbook that her ambition was to be a professional soccer player. But in an interview with the Montreal Gazette last year, Wilkinson said she never actually realized how good she was at soccer until she was offered a full scholarship at age 17 to the University of Tennessee, where she earned a degree in English.
Wilkinson made her debut with the national team as a 20-yearold in 2003 and last March became only the third woman to play in 150 games for Team Canada. She was hoping to make her 164th appearance Thursday night in Edmonton against New Zealand at the FIFA Women’s World Cup. Wilkinson missed Canada’s opening game — a 1-0 win over China on Saturday — while nursing a hamstring injury. Canadian coach John Herdman said Wednesday that Wilkinson was ready to play against New Zealand and would start the game on the bench.
Canada’s next game is Monday night in Montreal against the Netherlands, and Wilkinson’s twin sister, Sara — who lives in Vancouver, went to the game in Edmonton and is now at her mother’s home on the West Island — purchased a block of 50 tickets for the game at Olympic Stadium for family and friends. They’re obviously hoping Rhian gets on the field.
“I feel a bit selfish,” Wilkinson’s father, Keith, said Wednesday from his home in Mississauga, Ont. (her parents divorced while she was in university). “I’m feeling sorry for myself not being able to watch her, but it’s certainly frustrating for her as well. I’m frustrated, I think more than anything else, that Rhian hasn’t got on the field yet and (as a defender) she would certainly help to close down some of those corridors on the outside.”
Keith Wilkinson, who will be part of the group of 50 at Monday’s game, played for Canada’s national rugby team from 1976-79.
“I got three caps (international appearances), which makes Rhian’s 163 look rather grand,” said Keith, who coaches the Mississauga Blues rugby club.
Rhian also played rugby as a youngster, along with hockey, ringette, basketball, swimming, horseback riding and rock climbing before focusing on soccer. She maintains that playing a variety of sports made her a better soccer player, adding that she fell in love with soccer on her own with no outside pressure.
Her father does admit that when Rhian finally settled on soccer it was “a relief to my wallet.”
Said her mother: “Rhian has always said that she’s very happy that she did a lot of other things (besides soccer). I think that’s quite healthy, actually. Rhian didn’t give up hockey until she was 15 and that really developed her physically ... it made her very strong. She was a great skater.
“I think children should be encouraged to try everything. I don’t think it’s a good idea to just focus on one sport from the get-go. Give them lots of opportunities.”
Rhian has made the most of her opportunities. Like all the players on Team Canada — with the possible exception of captain Christine Sinclair — she’ll never get rich from soccer, but has managed to earn a living. She spent five years playing for a women’s pro team in Norway and has also played for National Women’s Soccer League teams in Portland, Ore., and Boston, along with W League teams in Ottawa and Laval.
“As soon as she first touched the ball, she knew how to keep it at the end of her foot ... she could just run with the ball,” her mother recalled. “That was quite something for a 5-year-old. She always knew how to handle the ball from the first time she played.
“She’s had so many challenges to actually get on the national team that when she finally got on it we were just very proud of her.
“She’s actually living her dream.”
As soon as she first touched the ball, she knew how to keep it at the end of her foot ... she could just run with the ball.